Have you ever known a booming business that did not have a sign out front? Have you ever heard of a church that grew in membership because they didn’t have a sign that invited the community in?
In 1968, Jimmy Easterling, founder of Wayne Industries, saw the potential in the sign industry. He was driving down the road and saw a flashing arrow sign in front of a business. He turned around, went back to the business, and asked the owner about the sign. "He told me he rented the sign for $100 a week," said Easterling. Seeing the potential to make a profit, Easterling hired a man to teach him how to build the sign.
Once the first sign was built, Easterling found he couldn’t sell or rent it to anyone. Finally, he let a local shoe store use the sign at no charge, only to be paid if it showed results. Easterling was still working full-time in order to generate the money to build more signs. That left only evenings and weekends to make sales calls. It took some time, but Easterling finally received an order for ten signs. He could not complete the order in time if he continued working his day job. So, he took the risk and quit his job to complete the order.
Beginning his business out of his garage he called his company New Signs. New Signs over the years developed numerous types and styles of signage and grew from his garage to an old school building. Several years passed and the old school building size was increased several times until the amount of land at the present location was exhausted. During the period of New Signs, Jimmy Easterling began to provide display products for the Point of Purchase industry and acquired two injection molding machines. It was time to relocate to another manufacturing location.
After relocating New Signs to a 125,000 square foot Dan River Mills building 10 miles away and progressing into the Point of Purchase industry Easterling decided to rename his business to Wayne Industries. Reasoning for the name change pointed to the fact he built a business that did more. More than just signs! He built a respected and established sign and display business in Clanton, Alabama that continues to thrive today.
More than thirty years later, it seems that the risk has paid off. Wayne Industries was acquired by EBSCO Industries, Inc. in 1998.